


How to Survive (When There's a Me and a You)

by MirabileLectu



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Domestic, First Kiss, Fluff, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Kissing, M/M, One Shot, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-30
Updated: 2012-04-30
Packaged: 2017-11-04 15:09:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/395218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MirabileLectu/pseuds/MirabileLectu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The explosion that came from the kitchen really shouldn’t have surprised John all that much, but if two years of living with Sherlock should have taught him anything by now it would be to never make assumptions he wasn't ready to have proven wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How to Survive (When There's a Me and a You)

The explosion that came from the kitchen really shouldn’t have surprised him, in retrospect. Honestly, after living for so long in a flat where nighttime gunshots, random body parts, and noxious chemicals were standard operating procedure, a small explosion in the chemistry lab they called a kitchen should not have fazed John in any way. It wasn’t like this was the first time a bomb had gone off in or around the flat either, although to be fair the first _had_ been across the street and the second had failed to detonate thanks to its appallingly shoddy construction. But something about the too-familiar sound of a _boom_ followed by several crashes and the tinkle of broken glass touched a nerve in John that he had thought long dormant by this time, and it wasn’t until he had ducked for cover behind the coffee table that he began to process what had just happened.

When the shock and the haze of adrenaline and battle instincts singing in him had worn off slightly and he had finally stopped groping for a rifle that was no longer his, he only needed a few seconds before he was on his feet and rushing towards the kitchen with his heart in his throat. He had _told_ Sherlock that this particular experiment was too dangerous for the kitchen, that he needed to save the especially reactive chemicals for a real lab where proper safety procedures could be followed, but the arrogant sod had just sniffed and insisted that he was perfectly capable of doing any experiment he cared to on his own, thank you very much. Visions of horrendous chemical burns, skin lacerated by shards of flying glass, and much worse flashed through John’s mind as he travelled the suddenly endless five steps across the sitting room to the kitchen, and by the time he flung open the door that Sherlock had insisted on keeping closed he had convinced himself that he would be facing out a burnt out shell of a room and an equally burnt Sherlock.

Thankfully, no such disaster greeted him. Oh, a beaker certainly had exploded and littered the entire kitchen with an astonishing amount of broken glass and startlingly blue liquid that John did not want to contemplate in any way. But there did not seem to be any fires burning currently, or any caustic chemicals eating their way through surfaces they should not be on, or for that matter any detectives/flatmates/colossal berks lying dead and mangled on the ground. Said colossal berk was in fact still standing by the table where he must have been when the sudden vaporization of his precious experiment had occurred, and still frozen in the defensive position he had instinctively assumed. Dressing gown-clad arms were thrown up to shield eyes that John was beyond grateful to see were covered by safety goggles this time, unlike the last experiment that had involved acids and left John with nightmares of peeling and burned skin for days. That scolding about the dangers of un-goggled eyes during experiments, complete with a particularly graphic warning about the usefulness of blind detectives, must have done _some_ good at least. When dealing with a recalcitrant Sherlock Holmes, even small victories needed to be cherished.

Heart thudding painfully despite seeing Sherlock still whole and breathing, John let out a sigh of equal parts relief and frustration that did very little to actually lessen his tension. He cleared his throat roughly, and only the absurd and potentially still dangerous situation happening in his own kitchen was enough to distract him from how embarrassingly hoarse his voice truly was. “Sherlock, are you alright?” What he really wanted to ask was what the bloody hell had happened and when it would be cleaned up of course, but that could be seen to when it had been determined that Sherlock was not actually dying at the present moment. It was rather sad, or perhaps just telling in the extreme, John reflected briefly, how very often that particular set of questions needed to be asked in that exact order.

With his arms still held up in front of his face Sherlock shook his head slightly as if to clear it, and that motion alone was enough to tell John that his friend had been rather badly shaken by what had just happened. Normally he would have brushed an incident like this one off by the time john had reached the kitchen and moved on to his next task before any words could be spoken – leaving John to do the necessary and tedious business of cleaning up course. But having a beaker blow up directly in your face was apparently enough to shake even the unflappable Sherlock Holmes, or at least daze him long enough to blink a few times before finally lowering his arms back down to his arms slowly and gingerly. He let out a tiny cough, likely in a fruitless attempt to clear some ungodly mixture of fumes from his lungs, before finally feeling John’s expectant gaze on him and realizing that an answer was in fact required. He looked down at himself for a moment and then shrugged, the eloquent gesture expressing exactly what he thought of the whole ordeal. “Of course I’m fine. It was just a small miscalculation on my part, nothing to…”

He trailed off while looking down at his hands, and then frowned slightly. It was the face one would make upon noticing a small tear in a favorite shirt, or that a nail had broken, or perhaps that a small cut or bruise had appeared for no apparent reason. This is assuming of course that the person making said expression was a normal member of the human race who was capable of expressing emotions appropriately, something that could never, ever be said about Sherlock Holmes. “Damn. I appear to be bleeding.”

With a heart that had sunk so fast and so far that it was probably now miles underneath the city of London, John followed Sherlock’s gaze down to his left hand. _Bleeding?_ John thought to himself, somehow managing to still feel surprise after everything that had happened in the last five minutes. Sherlock, proving himself yet again to be the master of dramatic understatement, was not just _bleeding_. “Just bleeding” would involve a small cut on the hand, or maybe even a largish gash caused by a slipped knife or unexpected sharp edge. This was not what had happened to Sherlock. What had happened to Sherlock, the man who had somehow managed to make it thirty-plus years without sustaining any major bodily harm, was that he had a shard of glass sticking out of his palm.

It wasn’t an especially _large_ shard of glass, truth be told, but the very fact that it was sticking out of the flesh of Sherlock’s palm at a jaunty right angle caused even John’s seasoned stomach to flip over slightly. The implications made his blood run cold, especially when he remembered just how that palm had been directly covering Sherlock’s right eye only a few moments ago. Goggles or not, a shard of glass travelling at that force in a direct trajectory for an eye socket was never a good thing, especially when it was moving fast enough to embed itself into a hand with very little trouble. John sighed yet again, the sound so familiar and that it had very nearly even become comforting by now.

“Oh, God, Sherlock…” he trailed off, allowing himself five seconds of Exasperated Friend Mode before switching over into Doctor Mode. “Ok, just hold still and keep your hand elevated while I – hey! What the hell are you doing?”

Not once in his entire life had Sherlock obeyed a command to “hold still”, and he certainly wasn’t going to begin now. While John had been talking, he had taken the opportunity to ignore whatever was being said in favor of narrowing his eyes, taking hold of the shard of glass with his undamaged hand, and promptly trying to extricate the shrapnel himself. John could feel his mouth hanging open as he watched his idiot of a flatmate try to wiggle a piece of jagged glass out of his own skin, before stopping and saying with a deepened frown and a surprise that John would never forget for the rest of his life, “Ow.”

_He’s a moron. The smartest man in the world is an absolute, ridiculous, incompetent moron._ John rushed over to Sherlock and grabbed his hands before the clot could do any more damage to himself than he already had. “Stop. Stop that right now, you’re just making it worse.” Sherlock flashed him the look of imperious indignation that usually sent half of Scotland Yard running for cover and left the other half standing in stunned silence, but John was no mere Yarder to be cowed into submission by a grumpy stare. He stood his ground and said “No, I’m serious. If you keep tugging at it like that you’re just going to make the wound worse, not better.”

“Please, John. I’m perfectly capable of taking out a little piece of glass myself.” Sherlock’s voice was scathing, and John could immediately tell that this wasn’t just about removing the shard of beaker or even simply being stubborn. Sherlock was embarrassed, something that a few months ago John would have been willing to bet good money was not possible. But living with Sherlock and becoming as close as they had over the last few months had taught him that the unfeeling robot act that Sherlock so successfully maintained was in fact just that – an act. No matter how he tried to pretend otherwise, Sherlock was perfectly capable of feeling such human emotions as embarrassment and shame, and the angry frown on his face and the stubborn set of his jaw told John in no uncertain terms that he was feeling them now and was _not_ happy about it. Having his experiment not only fail but blow up quite literally in his face was bad enough, but to be injured in the process was like a personal slight on Sherlock’s very character. Repressing a smile that would only aggravate the problem, John tightened his grip on Sherlock’s hands while carefully avoiding jostling the injury.

“Sherlock, if you try to take out the glass yourself you’ll just make things worse. And if the cut gets much bigger, you won’t be able to use your left hand for at least two weeks. Do you want that?” There was no answer save a frown that was now so deep it threatened to be permanent, but John took the silence as a grudging agreement. As he had learned early on in his stay at Baker Street, when dealing with a frustrated and upset Sherlock Holmes, even unspoken agreements were to be both accepted and appreciated. “Now, just _hold still_ for ten seconds while I get the med kit, ok?” There was still more silence, but John could only pray that this was another agreement instead of a silently planned mutiny. With this man, the best anyone could do was hope.

Thankfully, when he returned not a minute later with the impressively stocked medical kit they kept in the living room for just such incidents as these Sherlock had seated himself at the kitchen without doing any more lasting damage to himself in the process. The thunderous glare he was sending at the kitchen table as if it were responsible for his injury and the sullen slump of his shoulders told John that this was not going to be a fun process, or a particularly enjoyable evening afterwards for that matter. Well, there was nothing for it then. Squaring his shoulders, John took a deep breath and readied himself for what was likely to be an unpleasant and frankly arduous ordeal for everyone involved.

-

_Sometimes I hate being right_.

Getting the glass out of Sherlock’s hand was turning out to be a total, unmitigated disaster. The man had apparently decided that if he were not allowed to fix the problem himself, he would simply act like an overgrown two year old having a tantrum through the entire process in order to show his displeasure. John had no idea how someone who was normally so self-possessed as to nearly seem inhuman could suddenly turn himself into a petulant child through sheer force of will alone, but then again Sherlock had never been content to abide by the laws that governed everyday life and frankly John would have been more than a little concerned if he had started now. And so as John patiently cradled the injured hand in his own and picked previously unseen fragments of glass out of broken skin with delicate tweezers and unending patience, Sherlock twitched and fidgeted and wiggled exactly the way an angry housecat would while being held down and having its claws trimmed against its will.

John worked his way around the largest piece of shrapnel with careful precision, leaving what would definitely be the most difficult extraction for the very last. Despite the infinite care he was taking with each piece of glass he removed Sherlock was still bleeding much more freely than he would have liked, and the worry that one wrong move would cause an already-twitchy Sherlock to jerk away and cause even more damage was very large and very present in John’s mind. He was quickly running out of tiny pieces to pull out and no ideas on how to placate the stroppy detective in front of him were forthcoming, sending his blood pressure skyrocketing and his mind spinning as he tried to figure out how to fool and distract the greatest analytical mind in London, if not the world.

“Sherlock, really love, I need you to hold still.” The pet name slipped out before John could stop himself, and the endearment was nearly followed by a string of expletives as he realized just what on earth he had said. Calling your flatmate “love” was not exactly something that was encouraged when you were trying to keep him sitting still, no matter how close you were or how innocent the word had seemed in your own mind. Of course John used nicknames and endearments for Sherlock in the privacy of his own brain – and no matter what anyone might say “you bloody idiot” and “stupid git” were perfectly acceptable forms of endearment when referring to a man like Sherlock. But he would never, _never_ speak any of them out loud for anyone to hear, much less use one of them on Sherlock himself. That was unthinkable, and yet here he was biting his tongue and raging against his own stupidity for letting that treacherous “love” slip out of his mouth.

Already, only a few seconds after the word had been said, John could tell that it had been absolutely the wrong thing to say. Sherlock was frozen in shock, staring at John with mouth hanging slightly open as he tried to process what he had just heard. John could almost hear the hard drive whirring in Sherlock’s head, frozen and stuttering on repeat over the word that he could not understand and the endless implications it brought with it. But the tension of his muscles and the sudden stiffness of his arm and the slow but certain knitting of his brows told John in no uncertain terms that it would not be long before Sherlock’s brain restarted itself and he would pull away, glass still firmly in place and a chasm opening up between them that they might never be able to bridge.

All at once an idea barged into his head, shining and brilliant in its absurdity. It might not work – hell it probably _wouldn’t_ work – but at this point he was desperate enough to try anything that had even the slightest chance of succeeding. If he could just get the damn glass out of Sherlock’s hand and have him patched up before he bled enough to require hospitalization, he would happily take any mockery or scorn that was thrown his way because of what he had done to accomplish it. Before he could second-guess himself or Sherlock could escape for good, John made up his mind in a split second decision and leaned in to kiss Sherlock.

The instant that John’s lips touched his, Sherlock froze. Perhaps his hard drive could not handle so much conflicting data at once, perhaps the shock of the explosion earlier was lingering longer than previously thought, or perhaps he was simply and genuinely shocked that John would choose this moment to kiss him. But whatever the reason, the gentle press of John’s lips against his own rendered Sherlock utterly immobile even as he was in the act of pulling his hand away and standing up from the kitchen table. It would have been funny, hilarious even, if he had been able to spare a fraction of his brain to consider what they looked like at the moment with John holding Sherlock’s bleeding hand in a death grip as the taller man was held frozen in the act of standing up and pulling away from him. But between the concentration required to kiss Sherlock properly enough for him to stay and the attention he needed to spend on gripping the largest piece of glass with the tweezers, he certainly had none at all to give to the absurdity of the situation. With a quick but carefully angled and precisely measured tug, the glass was pulled from Sherlock’s hand. Only the quick intake of air that brushed over John’s lips told him just how surprised Sherlock was, but the gasp of shock was soon turned into a huff of laughter that earned a gentle smile in return.

“You kissed me just so you could pull the glass out of my hand, didn’t you?” The words were murmured quietly against John’s lips, nearly inaudible even in the echoing silence of the flat that reverberated with the enormity of what had just occurred.

John swallowed nervously against a throat gone suddenly dry. “Yes, I absolutely did.”

Sherlock chuckled, and a fraction of the knotted tension that had been growing in John’s stomach uncurled itself a tiny bit. Even as he had leaned in to kiss Sherlock, he had nearly balked away in terror for fear of ruining everything he had worked so hard to build over the last two years. Would Sherlock pull away in revulsion, disgusted that John would even think to try such a thing? Would he be offended at the assumption of familiarity, or would he simply mock John endlessly for being so absurdly sentimental and human?

But despite John’s worst fears, Sherlock seemed more amused than angry. “It was very clever of you, John. I’m impressed.”

“Yes well, I needed to distract you somehow.” The fact that Sherlock was impressed at John’s ruse was certainly not something he was going to admit was currently spreading a warm glow through his chest, so instead John opted for his well-worn and long-practiced tired resignation. “You were acting like a total child about the whole thing, what else was I going to do?”

A snort and an eye roll was Sherlock’s answer, telling John that everything was well on its way to going back to normal. Whether or not John was disappointed by that fact was something he was _not_ going to worry about right now. Right now, he needed to concentrate on making sure that Sherlock’s hand was properly bandaged before he bled on the floor any more than he already had. But as he reached for the bandages that he had close at hand on the kitchen table, Sherlock started to pull his hand away once more and move as though he were going to stand up from his chair. John looked over in confused irritation, a peevish scolding flying to his lips ready-formed. “Really Sherlock, I’m almost done…”

But the words died before he could finish his admonition. Because unlike before when Sherlock had been fidgeting out of pure spite and restless impatience that could not be contained in one place for more than a minute, that was clearly not the case now. He was not twitching in annoyance, or trying to pull away with a look of scorn or contempt on his face. Instead, he was smiling a crooked, wicked smile like John had never seen before and his eyes burned with a fire that made the very air crackle with anticipation. Slowly, deliberately, Sherlock tried to pull his hand away again. John’s grip tightened in an instinctive response to keep him close even as his brain spun wildly trying to decipher what on earth Sherlock was trying to tell him.

_He can’t mean…can he?_ The moment seemed to stretch on forever between them, with John staring wide-eyed and disbelieving at the man he had just kissed with absolutely no hopes of ever doing so again. But now, now that Sherlock was somehow managing to lean close and pull away at the same time, now that he was watching John with eyes that sparkled like a triple homicide had just landed at their feet, now that he was holding his breath and trying to speak a thousand things with eyes alone, John wasn’t so sure. A lifetime of choices flashed through his mind in an instant, before finally the only choice he could ever make settled into its rightful place. With a quick and desperate prayer that he was not making the worst decision of his entire life, John leaned forward and kissed Sherlock one more time.

Before, the kiss had been cool and dispassionate, a simple diversion meant to startle a remarkable brain into stillness. There was no such need now. Hesitant at first, growing stronger when he was not rejected out of hand, John kissed Sherlock with the tender and delicate passion that he had kept hidden away for longer than he cared to remember. He kissed Sherlock like he was a precious object that would shatter at the slightest movement, like he was an ephemeral vision that would vanish with a gentle breeze. But when a reassuringly present and warmly solid Sherlock sighed happily against John’s lips and leaned in to deepen the kiss, it was not long before John’s worries of rejection or dissolving fantasy vanished in favor of lips and tongue and the heat of a body pressed up against his own.  It was not long before he was lost in Sherlock’s touch, in the gentle glide of lips over his own, in the disbelieving and overwhelming joy that was threatening to overtake him. This was more than he had ever hoped for, more than he had ever dreamed of in the long nights when he ached for a man who would certainly never return the feelings that John himself could not understand. But here he was, kissing John with equal passion and joy. It was impossible, it was ridiculous, and it was the best thing that had ever happened to John in his entire life.

By the time they broke gently apart, John was so dizzy he felt as though the treacherous floor would spin away from him at any moment. But even with his mind whirring out of control and babbling incoherently in the face of the impossible thing that had just occurred, rationality assumed control as it always did to remind him that there were more important things to worry about. Fumbling with fingers suddenly made clumsy and useless, he found the bandages that had been tossed aside and forgotten in the press of lips and the rush of two worlds being stood on end. Thankfully years of practice and muscle memory ingrained deeply within him had not been wiped away quite yet, and with movements and quick and efficient as he could manage John finally got a bandage around Sherlock’s damaged hand to staunch the sluggish bleeding. It would have to be reapplied later when John could see straight once more and was no longer floating on a cloud of giddy disbelief, but it would do for now to keep Sherlock from bleeding out all over their kitchen floor.

Sherlock looked down at the hand that was suddenly swathed in layers of white gauze and flexed it experimentally, and a small chuckle of surprise and amusement escaped him. “Ever the vigilant doctor, as always” he murmured quietly, then looked back up to flash that wicked grin at John and set his blood boiling again. “Now that you’ve done your medical duties, I believe you were doing something much more important?”

It was John’s turn to laugh now, the sound startling him with its ease and sincere joy. He could not remember feeling this happy, this relaxed, this alive and breathless with excitement for what would come next. Although if the fact that kissing Sherlock once was enough to make him feel this way was anything to go by, a repeat of the same would likely make him nearly explode. _No time like the present to find out_. He reached out and with a gentle but insistent tug on Sherlock’s collar pulled him into a kiss that would not remain a just a kiss for very long. Now that death by blood loss was no longer a pressing concern, they could get down to the more serious business of making up for two years of lost time as quickly as possible.

**Author's Note:**

> Title shamelessly stolen from the Slow Club song "It Doesn't Have to Be Beautiful".


End file.
